I was immediately intrigued by this designer on the clean lines and
subtle details that he showed in this futuristic collection. It is interesting to see how he incorporated this kind of minimalistic look to fit the Dior Homme's image and it sparked my curiosity behind this designer.
Kris van Assche was born in1976 in Belgium where he also graduated from the Antwerp Royal Academy of Fine Arts. After that, he was lucky to have scored a four-month internship in 1998 with Hedi Slimane who was the Artistic Director for Yves Saint Laurent. He stayed as Slimane's assistant and apprentice there and then Dior for over six years before he launched his own collection, KRISVANASSCHE, in January of 2005. He was eventually offered the Artistic Director position of Dior Homme, succeeding Slimane since April 2007.
He did not have an easy path to success as his style was criticized for being similar to Slimane's ever since he launched his own collection. Van Assche had a lot to prove and to impress his investors that he would not be under Slimane's shadow since Slimane was a widely acknowledged designer for reinventing Yves Saint Laurent menswear. He did do some creative thinking to get the house on a refreshing new path by doing his own interpretation of "power dressing" and reworked the collection to have "feminine backgrounds".
He found his style and stuck to it finding inspiration from Dior's memoirs and his philosophy of design. He even had the Dior Homme headquarters painted from dark to light in order to refresh the outlook and start anew. I find it endearing that he has to work under that pressure and finally produced an amazing outcome for Dior Homme and I am looking forward to his future collections.
-Hong
Works Cited
Clark,
Adrian. "Foot in the Dior ; Kris Van Assche had Big Shoes to Fill when
He Got One of the Top Jobs in Menswear. He Tells Adrian Clark how He's
Making His Own Mark on a Legendary Label." The Independent: 1. Aug 13 2007. ProQuest Central. Web. 21 Jan. 2013 .
Kris Van Assche. N.d. Photograph. GQ.
Gentlemen's Quarterly, 25 Jan. 2012. Web. 21 Jan. 2013.
<http://www.gq.com/images/style/2012/01/10-essentials-kris-van-assche/kris-van-asscheportrait.jpg>.
Luecke, Andrew. "Dior Homme." Blog-Stylesight. StyleSight Inc, 19 Jan. 2013. Web. 21 Jan. 2013. <http://blog.stylesight.com/runway/dior-homme-6>.
